Employment Program Finds Jobs For Ex-cons

As a teen-ager Tom wasn't interested in honest work. Why would he be when he could burglarize neighbors' homes to get anything he wanted, including drugs?

Eventually, he was caught. A judge sentenced him to 6-years in prison.

In December, Tom (not his real name), now 21, was released from the Appalachee Correctional Institute after serving two years and nine months. Suddenly he had need for a real job.

He got lucky when an ex-convict helped him land one selling satellite dish antennas, but it wasn't satisfying. He didn't want to risk quitting the job he had, however, until he had another lined up.

That left him facing a tough problem: How do you find a job with little past employment experience and the stigma of having been in prison?

It was then that someone suggested that he contact the Florida Job Service Program. The program quickly got Tom a job with a bulk-mailing operation in Orlando.

It wasn't just Tom who received a better deal. The employer, who declined to be identified, was given a federal tax credit by the state for hiring him. Though the state job service program may not always run this smoothly, state authorities say it has been very successful since it started in 1983-84. In its first year, the program placed 612 people in jobs, according to Barbara Doran, a Tallahassee spokesman for the state's Division of Labor, Employment and Training.

In the first year it operated on $431,000 in discretionary funds from Gov. Bob Graham. The initial success of the program has spurred change and growth. In 1984, the program came under the control of the state division of labor and its funding increased to $913,243. In 1984-85, 871 people were placed in jobs.

Also in 1984, 20 new positions were created to handle those coming out of state prisons. The 20 formed 10 job placement teams that operate around the state and were joined by state workers who help to coordinate the offender job placement program inside the correctional facilities where convicts receive prerelease job training.

The program placed 1,483 people who had either been freed from prison on parole or placed on probation by a judge.

The program has been so successful that officials in other states are asking about it, said Steve Campora, assistant secretary for the Department of Labor and Employment Security.

''Other states want our people to come talk to them. It is a rather unique program,'' Campora said. ''It helps everybody because it helps to get those people placed in jobs where they are contributing to society rather than being a drain on society.''

When a convict is released, an employment packet prepared in advance for him at the prison is forwarded to the state job service office nearest to where he will be living. When he contacts the local job service office, the placement worker can move quickly to set up job interviews for him.

One of the state's most effective tools in placing convicts in jobs is the income tax credit, said John W. Walters, a spokesman for the Central Florida arm of the program.

Over a two-year period, an employer can earn a tax credit of up to $4,500 by hiring a person who is on probation or parole, Walters said.

About 80 employers locally have taken advantage of the credit by hiring 141 ex-offenders, he said. Employers are made aware of the credit by the job service or by the job-seeker, who arrives at his interviews with a packet of information about the tax credit.

According to a recent count by Walters, there are about 118 people in the Central Florida area who are on probation or parole and are still waiting to be placed in jobs. There are six in Kis

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dy of 250 large corporations, more than half of them paid no tax in at least one year from 1981 to 1983.

The lawmakers who now are working on new formulas for a minimum tax don't mention that Congress has flopped at this already. No, that would underline how hard it is to write fair rules that lawyers and CPAs can't beat.

Even if you assume that a minimum tax would raise a lot of money, it also would create a different problem: It would lull voters into thinking that Congress really has done something about taxes. Thus it would reduce pressure for simplifying the tax system, a much better way to force corporations to pay their taxes because it would eliminate most tax breaks. In fact, some lobbyists for the oil and gas industry are pushing this minimum tax idea simply to stop the push for tax simplification. Nevertheless, Rep. Charles Bennett of Jacksonville is pushing ahead with his proposal that would raise an estimated $13 billion from corporations -- and another $10 billion from wealthy households -- in the first full year.

A milder minimum tax proposed by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum has the opposite problem. It would raise only about $3 billion per year. That's because businesses that get hit by the minimum tax one year could receive a credit to use in the following year. Thus the plan -- a rewrite of one that President Reagan offered in 1982 -- would raise little revenue yet still waylay the push for major reform. Slapping a minimum tax on corporations would be a simple, effective way to cut deficits -- if only the tax system weren't so full of ways to get around it.

Instead, there's just one way to get all businesses out of the tax-dodging racket and paying their fair share for government's business: The Reagan administration should stop stalling, decide on its blueprint for a simpler tax system and then push it through Congress.